Messrs Cheek and Jones on the Anatomy of the Lion. 221 



many non-professional persons must be entirely unacquainted 

 even with those facts, which are well known to comparative 

 anatomists ; and that, in defiance of the knowledge which we 

 actually possess, our most popular and widely disseminated 

 books still continue to copy from the older authors, descriptions 

 which the slightest personal examination would at once have 

 shewn to be entirely erroneous. 



The anatomical structure of particular animals may be made 

 interesting to the general reader, either as illustrative of the 

 type or model of construction, which is observable in natural or 

 well marked groups ; as exhibiting striking differences, or ano- 

 malies of composition, in comparison with allied types ; or as 

 affording instances of the relation between the habits or natural 

 history of the animal, and the adaptation and contrivances of its 

 different organs. Two of these considerations belong to the 

 subject of the following memoir ; In the first point of \tew, 

 when we contemplate the natural family of the Cats, to which the 

 lion belongs, and which exhibits a pretty universal similarity of 

 structure and habits in all the species, we consider ourselves 

 fortunate in having under our inspection so magnificent a specimen, 

 in which Nature has, as it were, unfolded the plan of this tribe, 

 and shewn us her model on the largest scale. And, secondly, 

 when we behold so many beautiful contrivances wrought out of a 

 series of elements, identical with that of all vertebrated animals, 

 we cannot but admire and reverence that Power, which has been 

 able to subdue his fundamental plan unchanged, to the purposes 

 and necessities of individual animals. Thus, in the lion, the 

 whole framework of the body is identically the same as that of 

 all other vertebrated animals; but is adapted in an admirable 

 manner to the peculiar and remarkable habits of the feline tribe. 



The anomalies of structure, which so frequently afford an 

 ample scope for investigation, are rare in the Felince ; for, with 

 the exception of the chetah, or hunting leopard, (F. Jubata,) 

 which, in several respects, appears to be a connecting link with 

 the dogs, and of the lynxes, with their trifling peculiarities, the 

 type is almost uniform ; the species of the cat tribe, as it is 

 well remarked by Desmoulins, exhibiting almost as few dif- 

 ferences, as the individuals of our domesticated animals. 



The species of the genus Felis are associated together, and 

 distinguished from other genera, by a variety of characters ; and, 

 as these are not mere arbitrary marks of similarity drawn from 

 single organs, but pervade almost the entire organization, and 

 belong to the whole group of species, they represent in zoology 

 what is termed in botany a natural family. It seems to be unneces- 

 sary here to repeat from systematic works, the descriptions of the 

 teeth of the cats, nor to mention, that their toes are universally 

 five in number on the fore feet,* and four behind, all being 



* Accident has, however, placed in our hands the fore foot of a common cat, which 

 possessed only four toes, one of which was small, and represented the inner toe of the 



